Ozzuneoj wrote on 2026-08-20, 14:45:

:rofl: […]
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BitWrangler wrote on 2026-08-20, 13:42:

Okay everyone, change of plan, we hyped vintage stuff so much that it went up in price and nobody can afford it. Now we hyped modern stuff that had a supply constriction also, and nobody can afford it. So, time to look in our closets, what do we have a bunch of? CD players? Old routers? Great! Let's hype those until nobody can afford them.

🤣

I like this idea.
How about crappy home theater sound bars? Or, old pre-lithium power tools that are now dead and mostly worthless? Maybe OEM USB keyboards from Acer, HP or Dell? I see piles of those crammed with crud at Goodwill.

I am wondering when old smart phones are going to make a comeback and suddenly be worth a butt load of money. I honestly figured it would have happened by now, but unless you have something really specific (like a first gen iPhone) it seems like most are still not really worth much more than $20-$30, max.

Lol, I’ve tossed a lot of $9.99 smartphone tracphones

I’ve always wondered why most home theater bars are pretty much garbage.

My relatives have ones that are quite expensive but the sound quality is never great, it’s actually rare to find one that is clean sounding and getting the audio aligned to the lip sync is usually impossible even on the hdmi units.

myne wrote on 2026-08-20, 15:03:

BitWrangler wrote on 2026-08-20, 13:42:

Okay everyone, change of plan, we hyped vintage stuff so much that it went up in price and nobody can afford it. Now we hyped modern stuff that had a supply constriction also, and nobody can afford it. So, time to look in our closets, what do we have a bunch of? CD players? Old routers? Great! Let's hype those until nobody can afford them.

$Wrt54g to the moooooon!

🛑 Hold up! Stock check ...

BitWrangler wrote on 2026-08-20, 13:42:

Okay everyone, change of plan, we hyped vintage stuff so much that it went up in price and nobody can afford it. Now we hyped modern stuff that had a supply constriction also, and nobody can afford it. So, time to look in our closets, what do we have a bunch of? CD players? Old routers? Great! Let's hype those until nobody can afford them.

I have a load of pci winmodems if anybody is interested...

I never had WRT54G but do have a big pile of DG834/WGR614.

At least we know who to turn to when the apocalypse happens to get the phones working again. Bitwrangler sound like they could wrangle a working phones system together with their spare parts and I'm sure there are a few Vogons members who would happily help with donations to the cause.

BitWrangler Telecom "We Wrangle your phones so you don't have to"

Even the prices of 2.5" SSDs have gone sky high!
Those things have been in the retailers for months and years. Thats just retailers cashing in on the price increases of NVMe SSDs.

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2026-08-21, 13:48:

Even the prices of 2.5" SSDs have gone sky high!
Those things have been in the retailers for months and years. Thats just retailers cashing in on the price increases of NVMe SSDs.

Yeah, I bought several Kingston 480GB SATA SSDs to use in some Linux builds last year. Paid $26 each on Amazon. Those same drives are currently anywhere between $85 (eBay), to as high as $135 (everywhere else).... for 480GB.

Yep. It's still all madness, and unfortunately it's really not showing any real signs of slowing down. 🙁

Yes I have two 1TB Samsungs in RAID 1 as my boot drive. Both are old and I expect them to fail at any time. Replacing them is going to cost me several times what I originally paid for them.

I continue to cry into my beard, at the costs of msata devices.

Last winter, I had ambitions to buy some unloved 2tb or 4tb msata modules, wrap them in some sff sas adapters, and upgrade the homelab I was building.

As is, the spinning rust that came in my shelves will just have to be enough.

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2026-08-21, 13:48:

Even the prices of 2.5" SSDs have gone sky high!
Those things have been in the retailers for months and years. Thats just retailers cashing in on the price increases of NVMe SSDs.

The price of those drives is truly insane.

Last September I bought a 4TB Samsung 870 EVO drive for $530 CAD ($385 USD).

Current price of the same drive is $2355 CAD ($1710 USD). That's an almost 350% increase (!).

Even looking up the first 4TB Samsung EVO drive I bought in 2020, the price at that time was $900 CAD ($650 USD). I remember thinking that was crazy expensive for a 4TB SSD.

It's utterly ridiculous how high these prices have climbed.

They're not asking Original buy-price + margin.
Like oil, they're asking "replacement cost" + margin.

They sell it to you, they have to replace it to "have stock".

They're moving the risk of a price collapse to the person willing to pay right now.
Buyer pays for the replacement, and they give the one currently in stock.

Like it or not, they have to protect themselves too.
You pay replacement + margin.
They couldn't give a shit whether it's $3 or $3000 to replace under that model.

In the "I bought it for $3 but it costs $3000 to replace so I guess you can have it for $4" model, they pay 3000 to replace it, and then... the price bombs back to 300 and they've lost $2700.

Be grumpy. It all sucks. But understand why people do what they do.

myne wrote on 2026-08-22, 05:32:

They're not asking Original buy-price + margin. Like oil, they're asking "replacement cost" + margin. […]
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They're not asking Original buy-price + margin.
Like oil, they're asking "replacement cost" + margin.

They sell it to you, they have to replace it to "have stock".

They're moving the risk of a price collapse to the person willing to pay right now.
Buyer pays for the replacement, and they give the one currently in stock.

Like it or not, they have to protect themselves too.
You pay replacement + margin.
They couldn't give a shit whether it's $3 or $3000 to replace under that model.

In the "I bought it for $3 but it costs $3000 to replace so I guess you can have it for $4" model, they pay 3000 to replace it, and then... the price bombs back to 300 and they've lost $2700.

Be grumpy. It all sucks. But understand why people do what they do.

Petrol stations do that because they need to replace the petrol.
But that isnt the way it works in distribution and retail.
I know because Ive worked in both.

They are price gouging. Theyre selling at those prices because they can. Most of them are old stock, bought long before the prices went up.
But even if youre right then the seller will be getting the higher price not only for the cheap drives they have but for the replacement drive, so what your saying doesnt make any sense either way!

This is exactly why I stopped trusting fresh sample libraries and mod collections to a single spinning disk. I moved everything to a cheap secondary SSD just for archival years ago and it's paid for itself twice over in avoided panic. Feels backwards that storage got scarier to buy right as everyone's collections keep growing.

It will be funny watching prices crash after the bubble pops and orders are canceled.

Unknown_K wrote on Yesterday, 14:52:

It will be funny watching prices crash after the bubble pops and orders are canceled.

You only need to look at GPU pricing after the Crypto bubble popped to realise pricing will never return to what it was before, you'll see a dip but nothing truly significant or long lasting. The AI bubble popping will be no different, pricing will stay high as they will still have shortages of stock that would be what consumers are looking for and also the silly war is causing other shortages of required rare earth materials for HDDs and other forms of storage.

Eg right now they are all making HBM memory which is pretty much useless to DIY PC builders.

Then when things look to be attempting to return to normal they will find another reason to create more shortages, they really don't want people owning compute they would rather you rent it from them instead.

Trashbytes wrote on Yesterday, 14:57:

You only need to look at GPU pricing after the Crypto bubble popped to realise pricing will never return to what it was before, […]
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Unknown_K wrote on Yesterday, 14:52:

It will be funny watching prices crash after the bubble pops and orders are canceled.

You only need to look at GPU pricing after the Crypto bubble popped to realise pricing will never return to what it was before, you'll see a dip but nothing truly significant or long lasting. The AI bubble popping will be no different, pricing will stay high as they will still have shortages of stock that would be what consumers are looking for and also the silly war is causing other shortages of required rare earth materials for HDDs and other forms of storage.

Eg right now they are all making HBM memory which is pretty much useless to DIY PC builders.

Then when things look to be attempting to return to normal they will find another reason to create more shortages, they really don't want people owning compute they would rather you rent it from them instead.

This is the part that scares me the most.

They want to move everything to the "cloud", including your computing power, becasue this is really the only possible way to make money in a world ruled by data centers and AI everything.

I heard somewhere that the amount of money invested in AI is basically unrecoverable short of near total control of the market and everything in it, including your compute and data. This AI bubble is more overinflated than anything we've ever seen in the past. The crazy sums of money and resources being invested in a very high risk, high stakes game, all based on promises made of long-term future gains and record shattering rewards based on control of all our data, compute, and services. This is why the biggest players in AI are forging ahead, disregarding the dangers and pitfalls presented with this technology. They really don't have a choice. At this point, they don't just want your money, the need it, and cotnrol over every aspect of your life on top of it. It's the only way to win in this very dangerous game they're playing.

Their ideal future is similar to yesteryear, where your home computer, every device you have, is basically just a terminal. You have to connect to their service to use it, and pay a fee of course, either in the form of a subscription, or more likely, a token based system. They need AI embedded in as many aspects of your life as possible, they need it to replace as many jobs and services as possible, they need near total control, and that's exactly what their promising investors, more and more control means more and more profit.

This can really only end a few different ways.

1. They get what they want in some form.
2. They don't get it, and the bubble pops. Though, this could happen several different ways.
3. They recklessly forge ahead right into super-intelligence and none of it may matter anyway. Some "experts" estimate they may get it as early as the end of 2026. I guess we'll see.

Either way, it's scary. Makes me glad I had the life I did. It's my children and grandchildren who I worry most about.

Trashbytes wrote on Yesterday, 14:57:

You only need to look at GPU pricing after the Crypto bubble popped to realise pricing will never return to what it was before, […]
Show full quote

Unknown_K wrote on Yesterday, 14:52:

It will be funny watching prices crash after the bubble pops and orders are canceled.

You only need to look at GPU pricing after the Crypto bubble popped to realise pricing will never return to what it was before, you'll see a dip but nothing truly significant or long lasting. The AI bubble popping will be no different, pricing will stay high as they will still have shortages of stock that would be what consumers are looking for and also the silly war is causing other shortages of required rare earth materials for HDDs and other forms of storage.

Eg right now they are all making HBM memory which is pretty much useless to DIY PC builders.

Then when things look to be attempting to return to normal they will find another reason to create more shortages, they really don't want people owning compute they would rather you rent it from them instead.

The GPU market has changed quite a bit since the mining days. Look at the amount of RAM new GPUs need, the massive heatsinks and power draw, wafer processing prices have skyrocketed. GPU design has hit a wall.

China is making memory chips these days and like everything else they make they will flood the market with it once their local needs are met.

There is no real shortage of rare earths, our ewaste is full of it. The issue is cost to extract and the environmental costs because it is a dirty process. The reason the US stopped doing it is because China was doing it much cheaper so why bother. Now that China is using it as a weapon other countries are processing it again.

What I worry about is global trade will collapse sooner or later and electronics in general is a million-step process where even 1 step being stopped will cause the whole thing to collapse. Currently China and Asia produce quite a bit of all electronics, and those states depend on trade to get raw materials, fuel, and food so once trade starts to get pirated and taxed the whole industry will collapse. These mega container ships are only economical when they are not getting hijacked and insurance is cheap.

GPUS have changed sure but their pricing is absurd and has only gone up since the Crypto bubble, gone up well past what would be a reasonable increase.

Its bigger than just rare earths . .its also the helium they need, Israel is one of the biggest producers of it at the quality and capacity they need, this is why spinning rust drive prices have gone through the roof. The entire supply chain has been affected by that little spat in the middle east and I have zero doubt they will find another reason right after it ends to upset the world markets further. (China and Taiwan seems very likely)

China making memory doesn't help anyone but China, and like everything else China makes itll be of similar quality and reliability .. no thank you. I was there back in the 90s and 2000s when China was last flooding the memory markets. Not a great time.

I get that people hold onto cope that this will sort itself out and go back to normalcy but there have been far too many "Happy Accident's" for me to believe that this is all just "to chance" and not being manufactured.
All that said ...here in Australia thing are not looking that great even for basic supplies like food and fuel, more often than not the stores where I live cannot get enough stock in to fill the shelves with fresh vegetables and meat. Fuel itself is currently $2.20 a litre where I am ...not great.

So yes the entire supply chain is fucked at this time.

Unknown_K wrote on Yesterday, 16:50:

Now that China is using it as a weapon other countries are processing it again.

When an arrogant, over-confident, inept "leader" of a certain country, who doesn't understand the levers he intends to pull, and doesn't have the attention span or forethought to consider the consequences, starts trying to use coercive tactics against the economies of others, friend and foe alike, you have to expect a response. China was threatened, they responded.

Furthermore, it is many of the greedy businesses in that same country who handed China their dominance in manufacturing on a solid gold platter. It is far too late now to try and put that toothpaste back in the tube.

StriderTR wrote on Yesterday, 16:19:

At this point, they don't just want your money, the need it

StriderTR wrote on Yesterday, 16:19:

You have to connect to their service to use it, and pay a fee of course

StriderTR wrote on Yesterday, 16:19:

they need it to replace as many jobs and services as possible

It seems that some don't see the fundamental contradiction in that hypothetical scenario. The capitalist economy, as it has been, absolutely depends on enough "ordinary" people having enough "extra" disposable income to spend on things they don't absolutely need. Should their wet dream of A.I. replacing vast legions of workers come to pass, there will be that many people without income at all, potentially for an extended period. The fact that nobody seems to be considering the fact that that can't work is stunning. Vast numbers of unemployed people, potentially losing their homes, going hungry etc., won't be paying for A.I. services or computation-as-a-service, nor buying the products or services that the companies that replaced them are selling. It wouldn't take long before the global economy imploded. Are these wet-dreamers prepared for the post-money future; a future in which the money, profits and dominance they spent their lives chasing have no meaning, and where nobody has any means to pay for their services? Maybe even a world where there is no more gas or electricity to power their data centres?

These bozos have bet the farm, and then some, on this pyramid-scheme house-of-cards pipe dream of pervasive "artificial intelligence" being forced into every aspect of our lives. The inevitable result, just as in the dot-com boom, is that some of these formerly too-big-to-fail corporations will fail, or at the very least will end up a savagely-reduced shell of their former selves, and none of this is going to be easy-sailing for investors, economies or workers.